Since people cannot decide whether they are “enhanced” or “enriched” or “eBooks with extras,” I am coining the term xBook to encompass digital books that contain audio, video, and other interactive elements that require more than an eInk device to read. xBook has the advantage of not being a widely-known trademark and the “x as extra” is easy to explain to people. (Western Skyland Corporation holds a trademark for “xBook.” Western Skyland Corporation is a beard company for Microsoft. Since all but one other trademark held by this beard company is dead, I think it’s safe to use xBook as a generic term since it is not being actively used in the marketplace by the registrant.) Note that xBook should refer to an eBook — ePub or Kindle format — with extras, not an app, such as Vook.

What I didn’t know then was that Apple was part of the IDPF and waiting for the ePub3 spec to be finalized.

Apple states that although the present invention is primarily described in the context of a browser-based word processing system, the present invention could in fact be more generally applied to any system that renders textual information in a platform-independent manner and is not meant to be limited to word-processing systems or browser-based systems.

As innovative as the technology is, the interface still feels too technical, as if built by engineers not designers. The objects Aro recognizes are circled so as to highlight them, like a teacher correcting a student’s homework. Aro is training wheels for learning semantic technology. Here’s a person, here’s a date, it tells you. Tap this here. See what happens.

The text is circled because we, as Web users, can quite grasp the concept of actionable data that’s not highlighted in some way. We expect hyperlinks, colored and underlined, to direct our clicks. But links are going away, says Andrew Hickl, Aro’s CTO. Semantic technology will eventually lead to their demise. In a decade or so, any object, any piece of data, anything that you can touch will be able to do anything and no one will need training to know that’s the case – it will just be the way it is.

The NookColor will not allow people to use Kindle, Kobo, or Aldiko apps. To us here in the eBook world, that matters.

To NookColor buyers, it probably won’t: “I don’t need those, I can get books from Barnes & Noble.” And: “I don’t care if it’s not a ‘true’ tablet, I can still get apps from Barnes & Noble.”

Note that second reason was often used by iPad owners against Windows supporters!

Given how hard I expect Barnes & Noble to push xBooks (just see AliveTouch in the video below at about 2:50), some of those NookColor owners — with their exclusive Nookbooks — could wind up turning around and asking, “Can your iPad do that?”